If This Be Error
by Marla Fair
Summary: Written for the January Bonanza Boomers fan fic challenge and based on a photo showing Hoss and Adam in a saloon looking concerned. Its not hard to imagine why, Little Joe is hurting from the loss of Julia Bulette and looking to take it out on the world. Sage words from his brother Adam make him see things in a new way.


If This Be Error

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"I don't know, what do you think?"

"I give it five.

The man in the black hat pursed his lips. "I'm thinking three."

Hoss turned so they were both looking in the same direction. What he saw, made him squint.

Adam saw it too. Little Joe, standing, his nostrils flaring and his fingers forming fists, facing down a hard-bitten miner who occupied the chair opposite.

Adam ran a hand over his stubbled chin. Three minutes might have been an _over_ estimation.

Turning to Hoss he asked, "So do _you_ want to tackle this or should I?"

Joe and the miner stepped away from the table. The saloon girls hovered nearby – most of them liked a good fight if the truth be told – but the customers were flying out the door.

"How long you think its gonna take little brother to remember how to laugh again?" his giant of a brother sighed.

It had been six months. Long enough that the sting should have been gone. It seemed at home on the ranch that it was, but the moment they came to town and passed the darkened facade of Julia Bulette's place, well, their little brother's demons climbed out of that deep well of hurt the boy had inside him and made Joe...how did one put it delicately...?

Stupid.

Joe's rebellion had started simply enough with bumps and bruises. About two weeks after Julia was murdered, he came into the house with a black eye. He said one of the horses had shied and thrust him into the stall wall. Later, they found out it had been the horse's _rider_ that had backhanded him for mouthing off.

Then, it began escalate. Slowly the tally of injuries mounted – a shoulder out of joint, cracked ribs, a leg wound that had him limping. Pa talked until he was as blue in the face as Hoss' eyes, but it didn't do any good.

Then it got even worse. Joe started mouthing off not only to their hands, but to various and sundry unsavory members of Virginia City society, namely gamblers, gunfighters and...unfortunately...

Miners.

Like the one who was scowling at him now.

"Adam? You think we oughta stop him?"

Did he?

As Adam stood there, watching his 135 pound brother square off against a miner twice his weight and half-again his size, he was reminded of the words Polonius spoke regarding Hamlet's feelings for Ophelia.

 _This is the very ecstasy of love,_

 _Whose violent property fordoes itself_

 _And leads the will to desperate undertakings._

They'd talked a lot about Joe these last few weeks. Pa was afraid he'd developed some sort of death wish. Hoss just thought he was out of his mind. Him? Well, he was beginning to realize it was a little bit of both.

Apparently the kid really _had_ been in love.

"Adam," Hoss warned, "Joe's gonna get hisself killed."

It was like one of the Bard's tragedies – handsome young prince falls in love with a beautiful worldly-wise older woman. They have a brief and glorious affair that burns with the fire of the stars, and then the fates – ever cruel to lovers – separate them. She plunges a knife into her heart. He takes poison and dies.

"Adam?"

Ah, the power of love. It set ships sailing and sank them just as surely. It built empires and tore them down. It took a boy and turned him into a man before he knew what it was to _be_ a man.

No. That was wrong.

Joe _was_ a man now.

Adam glanced at Hoss before returning his gaze to the scene unfolding before them. Little Joe was flying through the air. The impact knocked the miner off his feet. The miner was bigger, but Joe was quicker, and soon their brother had the upper hand. He was just about to tell Hoss to buy a couple of beers and settle in for the show when the man reached toward his boot and something metallic flashed.

"Action is eloquence," he said, quoting Coriolanus even as he began to move.

Hoss grunted. "Huh?"

"The best way out is _through_."

It took about five minutes. One spent knocking the knife out of the miner's hand and four more to talk some sense into their little brother's head. The man ran and Joe wanted to go after him. He hadn't seen the knife – didn't understand the threat – and thought they were just babying him. When he told him, Joe paled and his eyes teared up. He bolted out of the saloon, slung himself onto Cochise, and headed for home.

Later that night he found him sitting on the porch. Adam pulled up a chair beside him. For some time they said nothing.

It was Joe who spoke first. "Sorry, Adam."

"For what?"

"You know, _everything_ since..."

"Yeah."

They fell into silence again. Again, it was Joe who broke it.

"Does it ever stop hurting?"

It was the lover who asked. The man and the boy were one.

"You want the answer you want, or the truth?" he replied.

Joe smiled. "Thanks."

Adam thought a moment. "You okay with Shakespeare?"

"Who's that?"

When he looked, Joe's grin grew wider.

"Sure," his brother said.

"Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. Oh, no, it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken. Love's not Time's fool. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom." He paused and met his brother's soulful eyes. " If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved."*

Joe fell silent, staring at his hands.

"Pretty smart for an man wearin' silk stockings and a lace collar," he said at last.

He waited a moment. "So are you through trying to kill yourself?"

"I guess so." His brother winked. "No promises though, older brother. Can't let life get boring."

Adam laughed as he rose and circled his brother with his arm.

"No need to worry, little brother, that's just _not_ going to happen as long as you're around."

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*Shakespeare: Sonnet 116


End file.
